


Are You Happier?

by ItFeelsLikeHome



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Post-Break Up, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-06 08:24:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11596773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItFeelsLikeHome/pseuds/ItFeelsLikeHome
Summary: The five times Robert sees Aaron looking happier since their break-up and the one time he sees him looking sad.





	Are You Happier?

I.  
10th November 2017

His eyes stung at the back of their sockets and tears flooded his sight, making everything blurry apart from the one thing he wished he could wipe away from his memory. 

Aaron with another man. 

Smiling. 

Happier than he had ever been in a long time. 

Looking through the small window into the crowded pub, Robert knew that he couldn’t remain hidden near the toilets for the next few hours or days. But what else was he supposed to do when he couldn’t handle seeing Aaron with another man? One that was nothing like him because this new man, who was sharing Aaron’s wide grin, was raven haired with hazelnut eyes. 

He knew it would happen when months had passed and Aaron was still adamant that they weren’t getting back together, hadn’t asked for his ring back and seemed to be off doing his own thing. Robert wanted to be happy for Aaron, but how could he be happy when the only person he wanted to be with, the only person he had been his happiest with, was loved up with a new man. 

Their grins were wide as they shared a joke about something. He could see all of Aaron’s teeth on display. It was nice to see Aaron’s smile again, especially when it was such a beautiful smile. 

‘Hey, Rob, what you doing out here?’ 

He closed his eyes, breathing in slightly, and waited for his sister to steamroll an answer out of him. 

‘I’m going home.’ He resigned himself to the knowledge that watching Aaron happier with anyone other than him was not something he wanted to witness. Ever. Not when he was still madly in love with him, would still walk through fire to be with him. 

‘I thought we were having a drink and a catch up.’ Her voice was too chipper for him that he wanted to lacerate his ears off so he didn’t have to listen to her upbeat voice. 

‘Well, I don’t feel like it anymore. Talk to Rebecca’s bump. You’ll probably get more sense out of it tonight than you will me. And you’ll probably enjoy it more.’

With that he walked out of the pub and back to his room at Brook Cottage - not even bothering that he would be on his own again while Diane and Doug took care of the evening duties at the Bed and Breakfast. He was gulping down his second whiskey when there was a knock on the door. He was ready to hide the bottle he had been slowly working his way through over the last few weeks. He was surreptitious in the way he drank it when they were out of the house, knowing full well that they would be unsympathetic and tell him to go to work. There was no point in work when he had nobody to share any of his profits with. 

He opened the door to find his sister there with no pleasantries to offer him. Victoria was always known for being blunt and this was another example. ‘You saw the two of them together, didn’t you?’

Any warmth that was left in his body was extinguished by the reminder of Aaron with another man. His eyebrows arched up in the centre and he felt so deflated that when Victoria enveloped him in a sisterly hug, he had no way of escaping it and he knew he didn’t want to. He had no strength, no resistance anymore. The fight in him, the one that had been obstinate and stubborn to want to fight for Aaron and their relationship, had gone. Instead, he succumbed to the sympathies of his sister. 

‘You will find someone new and be happier soon. I promise.’

Robert wasn’t so sure.

***

Preparing his fake smile had been the first thing Aaron had done when he noticed Robert walking down the path to the pub’s entrance. But when minutes ticked by, and he realised Robert wasn’t coming in, he knew there was no point in planting the facade on his face. There was no-one in the room he wanted to lie to. 

 

II  
New Year’s Eve 2017

He was tucked away in the corner of the pub nursing a pint but aching for something a little stronger to drink himself into oblivion. He refused to be sober as he had to stomach Aaron with the same man from before. The cold feeling that had started over a month ago was the general temperature his body was running on. 

He was cold and empty inside. 

Taking another swig of his drink, he realised that there was nothing left at the bottom of his glass. He swayed and stumbled his way to the bar to find Chas there. He wasn’t prepared for her vile tongue, but he needed more alcohol. ‘Can I ‘ave ‘nother pint please?’

He swung his head in the direction of Aaron, who was smiling surrounded by his new beau along with Adam, Liv and Paddy. His heart lunged out of his chest for Aaron, remembering the last time they were having fun together as they squirted the fire-extinguisher foam at each other. That was days before their relationship ended. He had been foolish thinking that his love for Aaron was enough. Nothing was ever enough when you had betrayed the one person that meant more to you than your own life. 

‘I’m not serving you.’ It wasn’t harsh or forced, but it was said with kindness that pushed his mouth to open in shock. 

‘Why not?’ 

‘Because you’ve had too much, Robert.’ It was a strange look on her face, no smile and no condescending smirk or snarky tone. ‘You need to go home and sober up.’ 

‘What do you care?’

‘I care, which is why I’m not serving you.’ She then hollered into the kitchen. ‘Vic, take your brother home. He’s already legless and it isn’t even 10pm, yet.’

He was coerced out of the pub by Vic and Bernice and taken back to Brook Cottage where they attempted to sober him up with black coffee and no more alcohol. 

The black coffee didn’t help. It made him even more maudlin and gave him wobbly gob syndrome. ‘I can’t cope in this village any more. Everything reminds me of Aaron. And no matter how hard I try to get over him, I just can’t. I wish Aaron had been happier with me, that I hadn’t cheated on him, that the slag hadn’t come to the village in the first place. It’s all my fault. Everything is my fault. Maybe if I hadn’t done all those things, Aaron would have stayed. That it would have been my tongue down his throat instead of that arsehole’s.’

He knew after the mess he made of everything that he didn’t deserve Aaron anymore, but he still needed Aaron. It was a shame that Aaron had stopped needing him. 

Instead he needed Neil. Robert hated that name. Hated what Neil represented. 

***

Aaron wanted to go outside - to follow Robert and to comfort him - but everything was still too painful and raw, the wounds too harsh even if Rebecca and the baby were not a problem any more. Ross being the father seemed to solve some of their problems, and Aaron still loved Robert, but it hadn’t solved everything. He still saw Rebecca when he looked at Robert. So instead he resorted to ringing Vic. 

‘How’s he doing?’ he knew every syllable uttered was dripping with concern. 

‘Not good. He misses you, you know.’

‘I miss him too.’ He swallowed back the tears. ‘I just can’t be with him right now. I need to sort myself out. I need to work through this broken mess that I’m in. I need to do it without him in the hopes that one day I can be with him again.’

‘You haven’t told him that last part, have you?’

‘I don’t want to give him false hope because it might never happen.’ And as he finished the call, he planted the smile back on his face as Neil came over with two pints. 

 

III  
21st February 2018

He detested Bar West, but it was the perfect place for the only thing he wanted to do: a random shag with a random stranger. He wanted to experience anything besides the empty feeling that had resided in his chest. And once he had seen Aaron and Neil there, well, that want became a need. He needed to get Aaron out of his system the way that Aaron had so obviously got him out of his system. He needed to shag around, become the man he once was that had sought out numerous one-night stands. The one that didn’t do love because he had been right: it really was a mug’s game. 

His eyes glanced to Aaron’s bare finger as it wrapped around Neil’s back and then instantly moved over his own where it still displayed his wedding ring. Perhaps he needed to take it off one day, but he wouldn’t know what to do with it or where to put it. And he couldn’t take it off that day. Any other day but not that day, when a year ago he was the happiest he had been. 

He couldn’t quite believe that Aaron was happier. He had been convinced that their relationship had meant the whole of the galaxy to both of them, thought he knew Aaron so well. But maybe he didn’t know Aaron anymore. That was the Aaron that was scared of showing off his bare arms even though Robert had always said how sexy they were with the scars. That was the Aaron that had only been to counselling a handful of times. Adam had said only the previous day that Aaron was still going to counselling and had become involved in a youth boxing club along with Zak. 

He sidled up to a dark-haired man with facial hair, that could have been Aaron’s doppleganger on a dark night in a dark street and when Robert was squinting. ‘Hi, my name is Robert.’ 

‘Graham.’ They shook hands and Robert felt nothing. He whispered into fake Aaron’s ears and felt worse than empty - hollow even. Even when he had his tongue down Graham’s throat he still felt hollow. It was even worse when he had to scrunch his eyes shut and imagine he was inside Aaron. It was jaggered and bumpy and different and throughout the whole of it he was imagining Aaron, which meant that as he came he ended up shouting out, ‘Aaron,’ in Graham’s bed.

*** 

Aaron could see what Robert was doing, knew that Robert was going with the age old adage that the only way to get over somebody was to get under a new person. It was scary how much Robert’s new person looked like him. Even though he knew by Robert’s choice alone that Robert still loved him, Aaron couldn’t mask the gut-wrenching pain slicing through his stomach as he witnessed Robert sticking his tongue down another man’s throat. He couldn’t deny the anger that he felt as Robert walked out of Bar West with that man. The urge to hit something - even Robert’s shag - was intense that he had to take a couple of deep breaths in and out to stop himself from going outside, ripping him away from Robert and pummelling the stranger into mush. 

Neil came over again with drinks for the two of them, putting his arm around Aaron. Aaron shrugged it off. ‘I’m going home. Don’t follow me.’

The tears that he had kept at bay for months - ever since he had taken his ring off and informed Robert he was off to Dublin - were now flowing like a tidal wave, washing over his face and into his mouth.

He remembered how happy they were this time last year, and he wanted it back. He wanted to go into a time machine and stay wrapped up in that bubble. The happiest he had ever been. The happiest day of his life. 

 

IV  
1st March 2018

Robert wasn’t sure how he had managed to come into work that morning, but he did. He was surprised when he had seen Aaron working - their eyes meeting as always - across the portacabin and Robert made himself sit down. 

He tried to concentrate on paperwork at his desk and even opened a few emails, but he couldn’t focus. All he could hear was Aaron’s conversation with Adam, as they were working outside, the window open a slither to allow their words to flow right in. 

‘I finished with Neil last night.’

‘Aww, man! I’m sorry about that.’

‘I’m not bothered. I knew something was missing. I knew right from the start really, but I just realised it wasn’t fair on either of us to continue. There was something big missing.’

‘You seem a lot happier, though.’

‘Yeah, I think I’m finally seeing my way through all this fog and mist. I feel like I have a clear focus in my life, a clear purpose with this boxing club. You know helping others like me that need someone to offload to.’

Robert really wished he’d stayed at Brook Cottage and hadn’t walked into work that day. His single bed seemed a better option than to listen to Aaron suggest that his life never had meaning when they were together. 

***

Robert walked out of the portacabin past Aaron and Adam, eyes on the ground and footsteps stomping around. Aaron wanted to kick himself that Robert had overheard the conversation. The absence of Robert’s car outside the portacabin had made him think that Robert had gone home. He’d stopped himself from saying that the one thing missing from his relationship with Neil was that Neil would never be Robert. He hadn’t wanted to divulge that piece of information because he knew Adam would tell him he needed to move on and not stay in the past. 

But Robert was the one thing missing. 

Robert would always be the one thing missing in any future relationship he had. 

 

V  
25th May 2018

Robert checked his phone and realised he’d had another text from Trevor hoping that Robert would give him another chance, that they were good together. 

Being good together was not meaningless shags when Robert had seen Aaron and was hurting, plastered up to his eyeballs on whiskey and vodka and any other alcoholic drink he could consume. Being good together was not booty calls when Robert was feeling lonely and then disappearing when he had got his rocks off. It was purely sex, and it was the worse kind because despite being fairly average and monotonous, it was also emotionless. 

There would have been no point in lying to himself anymore. He loved Aaron. Not past tense but present and future tense because he knew that his love for Aaron was never going to shake or disappear. It was as strong as a persevering ship still sailing despite the devastating tempests around it trying to knock it off its course. 

He’d been with Trevor in the pub and Aaron had been there - blue eyes on the two of them, watching every move they made but also eyes staring into his soul. And Robert knew that no matter how much he willed for this new relationship to work, there was no point. He’d rather be alone than have to live another lie again. 

Instead of finding solace in another bottle of whiskey - he’d started attending AA meetings regularly a few weeks ago - he poured himself another black coffee until he heard a knock on the door. 

Opening the front door of Brook Cottage, he was surprised to find Aaron with watery tracks running down his face and eyes full of fresh tears to be shed. 

Despite the pain of the last year, Robert knew he could never turn Aaron away. His heart vaulted towards Aaron hoping that whatever was making him upset could disappear soon, especially when Aaron had looked happier recently. It had taken a while for Robert to get to the stage where he was sure that Aaron being happy was the most important thing. Yes, it hurt like someone sticking white, hot pokers into his body, but he wanted Aaron to be happy with himself and with his life. 

‘Come in.’ He opened the door and stood waiting for Aaron’s next move. Aaron had always held all their cards, even as far back as their affair, and he was doing it again. ‘What’s wrong?’

Whatever it was, Aaron was having difficulties getting it out as he struggled with his breathing and bit his top lip. ‘Robert, I haven’t stopped loving you.’ It was rushed and garbled, but Robert heard it and felt the sentiments.

He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but why else would Aaron come to his house - not home, it could never be a home without Aaron living there - and declare this now. He treaded carefully. ‘I don’t understand. I thought you had moved on.’

‘I ended it with Neil because something was missing.’ Aaron’s blue eyes were staring straight into his own, and Robert felt knocked sideways with the intensity of it. 

‘Really?’

‘Yeah. Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?’

‘What is it?’ Robert wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

‘You.’ Aaron’s cheeks were filled with fresh tears streaming down his face. 

While his heart was speeding ahead of his thoughts and breathing, he tried to remain calm. Was this real? Had he gone back in time and this was an April Fool’s Day joke? 

‘You can’t be serious? You were looking happier without me.’

Aaron removed a tear from his cheek with the back of his hand before closing the gap between the two of them, his hands looping around Robert’s waist the way that made Robert feel complete and safe. ‘Shall I tell you a secret? I wasn’t happy. I faked it when you were around to make you think I was fine, that I was over you because that’s what I thought I needed to do. I thought I needed time away from you to make myself a better person, a happier person. Happiness comes from within. I’m content with who I am now, but I was my happiest with you. I miss you and I love you more than anything in the world.’

‘Are you wanting us to try again?’ Robert had to ask the most obvious question because he needed confirmation that he wasn’t dreaming. 

‘Hell, yes! I-’

And before Aaron could finish his sentence, Robert’s lips collided with his and explored areas that his mouth and lips and tongue knew by memory. It may have seemed like old territory, but every kiss that was planted on Aaron’s face and lips made his spine tingle and his body moan with delight. It was only Robert’s lips that he wanted to feel pressed against his for the rest of eternity. Aaron sighed: one of pleasure, acceptance and happiness. It was pure ecstasy to feel the rush of love and passion as you kissed the love of your life. 

It wasn’t an exaggeration. He knew that Robert was the love of his life. His one and only. 

 

VI  
Later that night - 25th May 2018

Robert’s arms were wrapped around Aaron’s bare skin, drawing invisible spirals on his back and revelling in the feeling that they had just spent that evening having sublime make-up sex. Aaron’s eyes were still open despite how he knew they were both shattered from the good work out they had earlier. Not being able to let each other go, they had switched and changed positions numerous times. Robert inside Aaron. Aaron inside Robert. Everything inside each other’s mouths. Lips sucking and tongue licking every available surface until they both came time and time again. 

But before Aaron could fall asleep, he tapped Robert’s bare chest with his index finger. ‘See me, here. For future reference, this is me happier. The happiest that I have been in a long while.’

Robert could see it, could witness the smile on Aaron’s lips, genuine and full, see the twinkle in Aaron’s eyes. 

‘That’s good,’ Robert said in return. ‘Because this is the happiest I have been in a long while too.’ He kissed the tip of Aaron’s nose. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you.’ And then Aaron fell asleep in Robert’s arms as he was so content and relaxed for the first time in a long while.

**Author's Note:**

> Any comments or feedback will be greatly appreciated. :-)


End file.
